The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-12-03

Different Ways the Nations Have Of
Showing Risibility.
San Francisco Chronicle.

San francisco Chronicle.
Of the worlds population those who
do not laugh. are, it is safe to assume,
in the minority. Laughter is lam
guage known to all races in all lands.
From the resounding 'haw haw' of the
male New Englander to the high strung
cachinnation of the South Sea islander,
there may be as wide range of into
nation and expression as there is of
chronological position but as rule
laughter means but one thing-the tick
ling of the fancy of the person who
laughs. Six years ago Beecher asked
from lecture platform in New York
if any Of his hearers had ever heard a
chinese laugh, the question being
worded in a way intended to imply
negative answer. That the Celestial
can and does give vent to his mirthful
feelings after the manner of other NOR
tails can readily be attested by any one
who has long resided in San Francisco.
To be sure, the Chinese laugh is rarely
as hearty or expressive as the American
or European. 1t is oftener litter than
a genuine odtburst of merriment.-
There is little character or force in it.
AS for the Arabian laugh, we hear little
of its hilarious ring through the ages
of mirth. in the Old World. The Arab
is generally looked upon as stolid
fellow-a man likely to persist in re-
fusing to give one the benefit of
mirthful appreciation of joke, even if
he saw the point. Travellers say, how
ever, that he does laugh On occasion,
but that he must either see good reason
for it beforehand or be surprised into
it. In Persia man who laughs is con-
sidered efeminate, but free license is
said to be given to female merriment.
Fred Burnaby has written of his expert
ences among the laughing beauties of
certain district in the northern part
of that country: He says that under
cover of the good nature implied by
their pretended jollity, they make bold
to fitch everything traveller may have
in his possession. One reads of the
grave Turk and the sober Egyptian
but it is not recorded that they never
have moments of mirth-when the fez
bobs or the veil shakes under pressure
of some particularly good thing In
Mahomet himself Christian writers
have noted cordiality and jocoseness,
and they say there was good ringing
laugh in the prophet with all his seri-
BUSINESS.
An American traveller in Europe re-
marks the Italian laugh as languid but
the German as deliberate, the
French as spasmodic and uncertain,
the upper class English as well guarded
and not always genuine, the lower
class English as explosive, the Scotch
Of all classes as hearty, and the Irish as
There is much that is indicative of
character IN the lsp0bsfefn nsqmeff mef 1gss 1ggsessenJley
the laugh is the weakest and most char
acterless thing about them. 1t is said
Of Nelson that his laugh was often with
out spirit. Nepoleon laughed little,
and not always at things in which men
Of his commanding dignity might be
expected to find anything funny
When Washington cared to break
through, his natural reserve he could
augh as long and as loud as any one,
but his biographers record but few in
stances of the display of jocularity on
he part of the father of his country.
A laughing president does not cut
very dignifed figure before one who is
with the belief that sedate-
ness is a necessary attribute of govern
nent's chief executive, yet Lincoln
made bold to laugh whenever he chose,
always welcoming good story teller,
md relating with much good feeling
troll tales of his own life. Webster
could tell good story, often at his own
expense, and join heartily with his hear
RS in the lanqh at the end He -
carlyle has tritely remarked, whose
augh is as untrue as anything about
hem.
In the Bible the words 'laugh,'
laughter and laughing occur only
thirteen times, which, while in keeping
With the gravity of the text, is consid-
red by some commentators as rather
singular.
Milton makes little use of the word
n his works. Shakespeare employs it
and often epigrammatical-
y. Tennyson's men and women laugh
nfrequently, although they sometimes
mile. Dickens made great deal of
augh, and often managed thereby to
give the reader clew to the character
IF his men and women.
Like the. careful student of human
nature that she was, George Eliot made
1ote of the thousand and one ways in
which character discloses itself through
he medium of the laugh.
In this merry age a good laugh is
enjoyed as much as it ever
vas in the worlds history. But what
would make man laugh ten or twenty
years ago cannot be relied upon to do
20 now. Practical jokes, for instance,
ire no longer popular, and witticisms of
he studied order, even in comic opera
Or burlesque, often fail of appreciation.
And there is the difference in national
.aste. A joke that sets an Englishman
Or German roaring is nine times out
Of ten voted tame, if not stupid, by the
American. Our modern wits rely less
lpon cap and bells than upon keen
satire and quick repartee. The laugh
:hus created is always spontaneous, and
whether in senate chamber or court of
Justice, it is irrepressible.
Men betray or commit themselves by
heir laughter as by anything. 4 knew
mad only to wait until he laughed to
tell if he were lying, said great En-
ylish philosopher of man whom he
Is be cunning, the foors Shallow, the
drunkard's coarse, the lunatic's wild
and meaningless. If a man would not
disclose his character let him not laugh.
He may simulate good nature and even
friendship by smiling, but he should
beware of audibly expressing his real
or pretended mirth, for there are those